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I have always loved his work, its subversiveness, its anarchic questioning of human behavior. As soon as I got a script emailed over, I was on a mission to get the job. Poor Things follows Bella, a Victorian woman whose brain has been replaced with that of an infant, who goes on a whirlwind adventure across the continents.
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For reasons I’ll let you discover on your own, Bella embarks on a strange, erotic journey around the globe that brings her from Portugal to Egypt and beyond. It’s part steampunk romance, part twisted black-comedy coming-of-age fantasy, and something you definitely don’t want to watch with your parents in the room. But if you love cinema, you’ll love every minute of this intense, emotional, and hilarious romp. I’m really at a loss for how to describe Poor Things. La Strada is another film which my wonderful tutor, Una, told me to watch.
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I was thinking about socialist meetings, and her and her friend would be a couple of beatnik girls from the 1950s with their black clothes and berets and black boots but sort of transposed into a late Victorian world. I also wanted her to be very consistent with the men, because you look at these pictures of Victorian medical school, the men have all got these black frocks. Well, they look black, because it’s all pictures in black and white, probably.
Frankensteining Costumes for Poor Things with Costume Designer Holly Waddington - IGN
Frankensteining Costumes for Poor Things with Costume Designer Holly Waddington.
Posted: Sat, 02 Mar 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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And nowhere is this more apparent than in the captivating realm of Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things, which won 4 Oscars at the 96th Academy Awards. The film won Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and the talented Emma Stone took home the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. I took a load of stuff out in suitcases and met her there.
Bringing Bella Baxter to life: Oscar–nominated costume designers discuss joys and challenges - UCLA Newsroom
Bringing Bella Baxter to life: Oscar–nominated costume designers discuss joys and challenges.
Posted: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
So I probably spent most of my time trying to imagine, well, if she’s a young child, I would probably be asking Yorgos really specific questions, like, how old is her mental age? And he wasn’t really interested in giving me very specific answers. Waddington spoke with No Film School to talk about their collaboration, the creative process that allowed for unexpected ideas, and the importance of being open to the world.
And what about when she leaves Baxter and her home?
The film would require Waddington to take everything she learned about 19th century fashion — and turn it on its head. Bella’s wedding dress, influenced by French designer Madeleine Vionnet (who pioneered the bias-cut dress), honors her figure in that way, too. The bubble mesh shoulder pads wrapped with bands symbolized dominance despite its light, airy fabric, Waddington says. I had worked with Tony McNamara on The Great.
To evoke, and very subtly, hopefully, evoke some sort of idea of living and breathing creatures. As she discovers sex, Bella’s world blossoms into color, daring, and playful pieces in her wardrobe with yellow raincoats and dressing gowns with shorts beneath, all accessories with her ever-growing black hair. From then on, as she evolves – from dabbling in philosophy and taking a job, out of curiosity, at a Parisian brothel, to developing an interest in socialism and, eventually, aspiring to become a doctor – so do her outlandish ensembles. The sexual coming-of-age film stars Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, the peculiar daughter of an experimental scientist with a special interest in creating chimeras. Bella, who has the brain of a child but the body of a young woman, is soon whisked away on a freewheeling adventure by one of her many romantic suitors. Set in a Victorian-esque steampunk world, “Poor Things” costars Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef.
So he has these boiler suits with places for his tools and his pens, and he has one that’s a bit like a smoking jacket. And I wanted him to be very inconspicuous when he’s out of the home, because of his disfigurement,” she adds; the character is marked by severe facial scars. “Very quickly into the day the clothes would have disassembled and come apart.
I described colors to him through words, through images, and he said, "What you're describing to me is the color of a rotting apple." And I went off and had a little look on my phone and noticed that he was absolutely right. But just the fact that he would know that says about this man's ability for visuals. I took the color palette from this range of women. The women in the brothel are a really diverse group.
He left me to get on with my own thing for a while, and then when we came back to look at everything that I’d come up with, he was very clear that he wanted these sleeves. On the first day of filming, that very textured thing that she wears at the piano, the sleeve was so big that it was impacting on how they could shoot her. That might be why people don’t do the 1890s in this way as a regular thing. When you go to costume houses, the sleeves were much smaller, but we decided to really dial them up, and go for them. I think what works is that they amplify well. And they also affect her body shape and create this sense of otherness.
When I looked at a lot of these illustrations of 19th-century men, late 19th-century men, they looked quite ridiculous really. They often have very puffed-out chests, and they've got canes and top hats, which in themselves are ridiculous. They've got slightly sticky out bottoms, and so, I wanted to kind of make him a bit of a caricature. We did spend a lot of time making body padding for him and playing with corseting his waist and giving him slightly rounded body padding, a bit like a Kim Kardashian pair of bum pants. He had this chest pad so that he would look a bit pompous. We played with all of these ideas, and when we did the camera test, they looked a bit silly.
Some see it as a triumph of female empowerment and self-discovery. Others questioned its portrayal of femininity, stating it is yet another film made in the male gaze taking advantage of female sexuality. Fueled by the movie's divisive reception, these debates mirror its influence on social dialogue and prompt reflection on gender norms and representation in media. In the world of cinema, fashion isn't just about clothes—it's a dynamic storytelling tool, sparking narratives of identity, empowerment, and societal change.
From then on, as she evolves—from dabbling in philosophy and taking a job, out of curiosity, at a Parisian brothel, to developing an interest in socialism and, eventually, aspiring to become a doctor—so do her outlandish ensembles. "'Poor Things' was a very rare opportunity to be really free and artistic in a creative process as a costume designer," she continued. "Thank you, Yorgos [Lanthimos], for that and for making such bold and brave work." The film’s beginning is captured in black-and-white, portraying Bella’s early years dressed in knickers, bloomers, ruffles, quilting and baby doll dresses. In an interview with Vogue in December 2023, now Oscar winning Costume designer Holly Waddington, reflects on that development through Bella's wardrobe as it evolves dramatically on a whirlwind journey. Waddington's creations, inspired by Victorian patterns but executed with modern fabrics like plastic and latex, perfectly capture Bella's otherworldliness and progressive spirit.
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